


A Personal Insight Into the Dreams of Credence Barebone

by LunarC



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: (sort of), Choking, Drabble, Dreaming, Drowning, First Kiss, M/M, dream - Freeform, enough for a warning though, experimental fic, just a little, short fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-26
Updated: 2016-12-26
Packaged: 2018-09-12 09:36:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9066112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LunarC/pseuds/LunarC
Summary: Dreams are unfortunately truthful by nature and can offer revelations even when the dreamer never asked to see them...





	

Credence was walking down a dark, black, hallway.

His feet were bare and he was in his bed clothes from New York. His skin was cold, pale and frozen, as it had always felt in the winters of his youth. 

Credence kept walking though, strolling down bleak, black, marble hallways that all looked exactly the same. He dragged his fingers across the walls and noticed that despite the cold temperature of the room the walls were warm. Like the outside of an engine or the flesh of a giant beast.

Credence rounded a corner and came face to face with the outside of the shack from within Newt Scamander’s case. Orange light poured out of its rickety wooden windows and Credence stood, watching silently, as he saw the silhouette of the man it belonged to moving about within. 

Credence trudged forward, his steps passing from the marble floor behind him to the soft grass surrounding the shack. The leaves of the vines that scaled it and the boughs of the trees rustled as he approached but Credence barely noticed as he ascended the small slope toward it, eyes locked on the open window and where he could see Newt’s shadow, sitting, within.

Credence reached out, his fingers almost touching the window when he felt someone’s gaze on him from behind.

A shiver went down Credence’s spine and he turned to look over his shoulder. 

Behind him Chastity and Modesty stood holding hands in their night clothes. Just on the edge of where black marble floor petered into grass.

Credence felt sheer terror grip him as he turned but found he was unable to speak to his sisters who stared at him, pale, blue lipped and dirty faced. Chastity had small cuts across her jaw and nose while her feet were black with dirt and her arms pink and blue with bruises.

Modesty raised her toy wand at Credence and Credence threw up his arms to defend himself from her silently chanted spell.

Credence was knocked backwards from the roaring spell, which flashed blue in the shape of a giant, two winged, bird. It barrelled into Credence and he crashed through the window of Newt’s Shack and rolled, painfully, across icy asphalt.

Credence gasped, blunt finger nails scrabbling on a dirty but familiar side walk. His sides felt bruised, his lip was split and his jacket sleeve torn like when he’d taken a beating from the gang of youth’s on the corner of Madison Avenue for looking too long in their direction. 

Credence forced himself up onto his feet and lurched forward, limping, until he came up against a cold, papered, alley wall. He held himself upright, trying to catch his breath and furiously wiping the blood from his mouth and trying to fix his battered hair. Gripped with paranoia that his Ma might catch him like this: Beaten and improper. Truly the son of an unnatural whore.

“…Credence,” A seductive voice whispered, so close to Credence’s ear that he flipped himself from the wall, eyes wide and panicked only to find himself completely alone.

Credence’s breath came in short, panicked, heaves as he looked up and down the endlessly long and bleak alleyway for the source of the voice. His Ma’s posters papering the walls from ground to the sky (where the walls seemed to rise endlessly into the cloud above).

All of a sudden a hand wrapped around Credence’s throat while another fastened about his waist, grabbing his right hand before he could reach for his wand at his hip.

“You’re different, Credence…” The voice murmured, right into Credence’s neck. A molten body seeming to appear out of the stone behind him, wrapping him in its heat, undeclared. Burning Credence from his ankles to the crown of his head.

At first the warmth was comforting and even though Credence struggled to breathe he leant back, into the arms of the person completely possessing him. Wanting to escape the bitter cold and fear of the alleyway no matter the danger. 

The hand around his neck squeezed tighter when Credence tried to speak and so he remained silent. 

“You trust me, don’t you?” The dark voice said and Credence felt warm tears dripping over his cheeks despite feeling nothing at all but the heat against his back, around his throat, pressed into his wrist through his thin bed clothes.

But Credence couldn’t answer, as every time he tried to draw a breath the hand at his throat closed tighter and tighter. The heat which had been comforting seconds earlier was quickly becoming painful, branding his skin and burning him.

Credence tried to pry the hand from his throat with his free hand but couldn’t get at the stranger’s skin-as it was white hot to the touch and burnt his fingertips.

“Let-me-go-“ Credence garbled through his abused throat.

The hand at his wrist tightened hard enough that Credence thought he could feel his bones grinding together. Credence bucked, writhing, as all the air was squeezed out of him and he felt the skin of his back and throat beginning to burn and blister. Black smoke began to rise from his shoulders and the body of the creature pinning him to its chest. 

“Please-Pl-Help me-“ Credence twisted, trying to bite, to swing a punch, tear out the hair of the man behind him as he’d done before, countless times, on the dark and horrible streets of his youth.

“You wanted this.” The velvety voice said, not giving Credence an inch. “Once-you would have begged.”

No! Credence insisted in his mind and finally had the sense to use his free hand to draw his wand.

Lumos! He thought desperately, unable to make any sound at all.

Instead of light however everything went black.

Credence was plunged into dark, frigid, water. It soothed and burned his blistering back but he realised, fitfully, as he hung suspended completely in its depths, that he did not know how to swim. He kicked, desperately and choked on water as he fought to where he hoped the surface was. 

As Credence kicked, bed clothes weighing him down in the pitch black, deep, water, he had the eerie, primal, feeling that he was not alone.

Credence dragged himself through the water, fighting swirling currents, like some creature was swimming just by his side buffeting him as he finally, blessedly, breached the surface. Gasping in air and treading water as well as he could.

He sputtered while the sounds of his thrashing echoed loudly, as if he was in some kind of stone cave.

Credence caught his breath, holding onto his wand as tightly as he could when he finally noticed a large ball of light, under the water, a small swim away in the middle of the utter darkness. Credence stared, wide eyed, as it was obscured for a moment by a large, shifting, black shadow swimming by it under the surface.

But there was nowhere else to go and so Credence forced himself to swim toward the light.

Once he was close enough Credence stole himself, fighting down the guttural fear that he was being circled in the dark, cold, water and took a deep breath before plunging himself back under the top of the still pool. 

Credence kicked and paddled as hard as he could toward the light while every few seconds he thought he caught a glimpse of the beast-a giant, black, shadowy form with long tendrils which swam in circles around the light. As if drawn to it in the same way that Credence was.

Credence paused just a few feet in front of the light, drifting a little as he saw the creature stop in the same way opposite the light, as if it had finally noticed him.

Instead of fear morbid fascination greeted Credence as he recognised the dark, spiralling, tendrils of his obscurus. Weightless in the water and seeming to just observe him from afar. 

Credence tore his eye from the black mass and to the light and then quickly snapped his gaze back on it as he noticed, with some concern, that the obscurus had darted closer in the interval. 

Credence stared at it, bubbles rising from his mouth before he swiftly began to race the obscurus for the light.

The obscurus lurched forward at the same time. It was slower in the water, more cumbersome due to its size where Credence was smaller and lighter. Fighting with every ounce of energy within himself to reach the light before the obscurus could consume it. 

Credence and the obscurus met the light at the exact same moment however as the obscurus wrapped around Credence and the light, smothering it, Credence reached out and into its core. 

He was propelled forward and into it, like being sucked through a whirlpool, then he was dropped into cold snow, right on his face. 

Credence sat up, coughing and spitting out snow, his fingers felt blue from cold and his whole body felt electric, new, like he’d been reborn again from the water. As he pushed himself up onto his knees, arms wrapped around himself and his wet clothes he felt a warm blanket lightly settle over his shoulders.

Credence looked up, eyes wide as a hand was extended toward him from above.

Newt Scamander smiled down at Credence, Dougal curled around his shoulders with large, blue, eyes. Newt glanced down at his hand, then back at Credence pointedly.

Credence took Newt’s hand and he pulled him to his feet only when Credence opened his eyes after blinking they were no longer in the snowy obscurus enclosure but inside the shack. Credence turned to the window he’d crashed through earlier and found it in perfect condition. He leant toward it and peeked out but could see no trace of his sisters.

Credence looked down at the floor where he was now wearing Newt’s borrowed shoes. Credence fisted a hand in his shirt and found it dry, warm and woollen. Another hand me down from the magizoologist who he could hear puttering around just behind him. 

Newt didn’t speak as he prepared Credence’s tea and placed it on the small table in front of Credence’s cot within the case. Credence went and sat upon it, rubbing at his throat (where small, raised, scars remained).

Newt appeared at Credence’s side and picked up his tea cup, placing it into Credence’s hands (who took it, leaving the marks at his neck with a small look of appreciation).

The tea was warm and Credence sipped at it while Newt fussed, silently, utterly silently, pulling a pot from a high shelf and coming to sit beside Credence who was still sipping his tea when gentle, calloused, hands began to press a balm against his skin.

Credence stared, wide eyed, as his neck was tended to, staring at Newt who seemed completely at ease. As if they did this kind of thing every day. He finished Credence’s neck, squeezing his shoulder fondly and then took his tea cup and placed it back on the table, taking Credence’s injured wrist and placing it on his knee.

Credence watched, wide eyed and hot in the face as Newt carefully applied more of the soothing balm to his burned and scarred wrist, then worked the cream into his hand (where the scars of his Ma’s abuse had somehow re-appeared, white and ugly, all over his palm).

Credence stared at Newt, who just worked quietly and efficiently before finally looking up at Credence, barely a hands breath away.

Newt smiled at him again when he noticed Credence staring, pressing a hand affectionately against the back of Credence’s neck and gazing, captivated, into his eyes.

Credence thought he must be being strangled again, as the air left him as Newt leant forward, pressing his mouth against Credence’s in a fond kiss. 

Credence didn’t know what to do, but he felt a desperate, yearning, satisfaction as Newt leant back, eyes warm and caring. Touch soft and familiar. 

Credence wanted nothing more than to drown in his stare.

Behind them the window shattered and a giant, blue glowing bird screamed into the room, water cascading from its wings like a waterfall and drenching Credence and Newt where they sat-

\---

Credence’s eyes shot open, gasping, as cold water dripped from his eyelashes and down his collar. 

“-So sorry, Credence!” Newt cried, as a reptilian, wailing, creature (drenched in water, the same which was now dripping from Credence’s nose) threw itself over Credence again, crashing into a bookshelf. “The Grindylow’s are all stirred up! Took my wand! This is the last, bloody, buggering-“ 

Newt leapt across Credence and caught the creature as it lunged from a higher spot in the shack. Knocking the wind out of Credence as Newt rolled over the young man and onto the floor, the Grindylow writhing in his arms, tendrils wrapped tight around Newt’s wand. 

Credence gripped his chest, grabbing his wand and trying to get his footing in the present as Newt finally managed to stupefy the gnashing, feisty, creature.

“Finally! Goodness, it has been a long morning, I’m glad you got some good rest though!” Newt chattered, picking the Grindylow up and casting a sleeping spell on the twitching beast. He turned a red faced, sweaty, smile on Credence and Credence felt instantly uncomfortable under the glow of his eye. “…You were dreaming, weren’t you? I heard you from outside-thought it best to leave you be…”

Credence stared at Newt, drenched from head to toe, two buttons missing from his shirt, one shoe only half done up, waist coat torn and flushed from running around the case all morning.

Wonderful. Credence thought drily at the revelation of his recent dream, though he showed no emotion at all but a grim, small, smile.

“Yes.” Credence murmured, as Newt watched him patiently, “I must have been...”

Newt seemed to pick up on Credence’s strange mood but elected not to follow it up, casting one last, tired smile at Credence before trotting out of the shack, Grindylow held aloft and bickering with a sodden, unhappy, Pickett on his shoulder. 

Credence sat propped up against his cot’s pillows and pressed a hand, forlornly, against the ghost of a kiss on his lips...

**Author's Note:**

> Alternate title: Catching Feelings Sucks: A Cautionary Tale


End file.
